“Leave Rebekah alone. I will not let you come between her and Isaac again. Will not.”
“Can I speak to Dave?”
The woman’s demeanor changed from demonic to angelic in an instant. “Dave is with his physical therapist. Did you know he stood for the first time the other day? I’m so proud. I think he’ll be walking soon. God answered my prayers. I must live up to His expectations.”
Eric decided Mrs. Blake needed a new jacket. A jacket with sleeves that fastened behind her back.
“Okay, thanks.”
Eric hung up and tried to call Rebekah again. He wondered if she had any idea how unbalanced her mother was.
Chapter 30
Rebekah took a deep breath and knocked on Isaac’s apartment door. She knew she probably shouldn’t show up unannounced. He might not even be home. She wanted to clear the air between them now. She didn’t want anything to weigh on her thoughts while she was having dinner with Eric. Or while they picked out her engagement ring.
A minute later the door swung open, and Trey Mills stood in the doorway in nothing but a pair of black satin boxer shorts. “Hey, Rebekah,” he said with a devilish grin. “What brings you here?”
“Uh…” Why was Trey in Isaac’s apartment? Maybe they’d hit it off after she and Eric had left the evening before. Okay. That made sense. But why was he almost naked? “Is… is I-Isaac h-here?”
“Yeah, he’s here. Why don’t you come in?”
Trey stepped to the side, and Rebekah entered the apartment.
She could smell dinner cooking. Garlic, oregano, parmesan. Isaac had always been an excellent cook. Italian cuisine was only one of his specialties. Trey shut the door behind her and pressed a hand to the small of her back.
“Don’t be too hard on him, okay?” he said quietly. “He’s happy, but scared.”
“About what?”
“I’ll let him tell you.”
Isaac stepped out of the bedroom, drying his hair with a towel.
He was wearing gray lounge pants, but was shirtless and barefoot.
“I was thinking,” he said, a huge smile on his face, “maybe I should get my tongue pier—” He noticed Rebekah, and his smile faded. He dropped the towel around his shoulders.
They stared at each other wide-eyed for what seemed like hours.
“Isaac,” she said finally. “What’s going on?”
Isaac’s eyes flicked to Trey. He looked like a caged animal ready to dart as soon as a break presented itself. “What did you tell her?”
Trey shook his head. “Nothing.”
“We need to talk,” Rebekah said.
Isaac nodded. He turned and went back into his room. She didn’t really want to go into his bedroom, but she supposed since Trey was there, they needed someplace private to have their falling out.
Rebekah entered his room and closed the door. The lamp on the bedside table glowed softly. She couldn’t help but notice the empty condom wrappers. So he claimed to love her but had slept with some other woman? Not that she cared. It just added to her confusion about how Isaac had been treating her lately.
His back was to her. His head hung low. He was obviously feeling guilty about something.
“I know what you did to my cell phone,” she said.
“I’m gay,” he blurted.
The words registered, but the implications behind his statement were difficult to grasp. “You’re… what?”
“Gay. Homosexual.”
She blinked and shook her head slightly. “You’re… what?”
she repeated.
“I like guys, okay?” He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m gay. Is it that hard for you to understand?”
Yes, it was that hard for her to understand. They’d been in love.
Engaged. Had sex. Granted, it had been passionless, sorta icky sex, but it had been sex. Infrequent. Lights off. Boring. Tedious sex. But it had been sex, by God.
Isaac’s gay.
The reality struck her so hard that she laughed. “You’re gay?”
He nodded, avoiding her gaze.
Her eyes darted to the empty wrappers on the bedside table.
“You had sex with Trey?”
He flushed and did this cute eye-rolling thing that not only told her he had done it with Trey, but it had been phenomenal. Not icky.
Not boring. Not tedious. It had been full of passion. And the lights had definitely been on.
“I need to sit down,” Rebekah said. She sat on the edge of his bed and breathed through her lightheadedness.
He sat beside her. After a moment, he took her hand and gripped it in both of his. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For trying to come between you and Eric. I know you love him, but I needed you to marry me.”
“I’d like to say I understand, Isaac, but I honestly don’t.”
“I need a wife,” he said. “For appearance’s sake. You know my father will disown me if he finds out I’m gay. I might as well kiss the family practice good-bye. You and I get along so well. You can’t have kids anyway, so no one would be suspicious if we adopt. It just makes sense that we stay together.”
“So I’m supposed to give up my chance at happiness so you can pretend to be something you’re not.”
He ran a hand over his face. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. I love you, Rebekah. I do. I always have. I’d be a great husband.
Treat you well. Take care of you forever. Give you anything you could ever want or need. It’s just the thought of having sex with you makes me physically ill.”
As if she could forget how unattractive he’d made her feel. “But that’s not because I’m not sexy or because my body feels weird inside, it’s because…” For the first time, she realized she wasn’t the one with the problem. It never had been. She jerked her hand out of his and jumped to her feet to glare at him. “How could you do that to me?”
“Do what?”
“Make me feel so sexually unappealing! Talk about a major mind fuck, Isaac. If it weren’t for Eric, I’d still think I had nothing to offer a man in the bedroom. I thought there was something wrong with me. That my body was disgusting.”
“I thought there must be something wrong with you. I wanted to be attracted to you, Rebekah. I just… wasn’t. And I couldn’t… I couldn’t force myself to have sex with you after the surgery. I tried.
Mentally, I had convinced myself that I needed to. Physically? I couldn’t even maintain an erection. I really did think it was because of your surgery.”
“It never occurred to you that I wasn’t the problem?”
“Did that occur to you?” he asked.
She lowered her eyes. “Well, no, actually. You’ve always been so… so… well, perfect.”
“That’s a pretty hard label to live up to.”
The turmoil in his eyes made her cringe. She wasn’t even mad at him anymore. She emitted a loud sigh. “You must be struggling to come to terms with this. When did you realize?”
“Last night.”
“Thank you for confiding in me. I’m sure that wasn’t easy.” She sat beside him again and wrapped an arm around his back. He leaned against her for support, and they sat there for a long while, silently offering strength to one another. He’d done this so many times when she’d been sick. Just offered his presence so she never felt alone. She was happy to offer him this bit of comfort in return.
“Rebekah?” he said quietly. “I need to ask you a favor. Will you do something for me?”
She stroked the loose waves from his forehead with one hand.
“Of course.”
“My father is having a big dinner party next week. All the physicians from the clinic will be there. The entire staff too. He didn’t say specifically, but I think he’s going to ask me to join the practice full time. In front of everyone.” He took her hand and clung to it. “I was hoping… would you go with me? We could pretend…”